So I realize I have posted almost nothing about my new house and neighborhood. We love it here.

I’ve been working from home because my work still hasn’t figured out how to get me into work. I sold my car shortly before they decided to move and then they picked the one location they were looking at that wasn’t accessible by bus. “No problem,” they said, “we’ll find a way to get you there.” They haven’t yet, but I’m not in a rush. It’s wonderful being at home every day. The view out the windows is fantastic, and I like being able to give Stella a hug whenever I want. Plus I’m much more productive without a commute. I have no problem adding the 30 minutes to an hour that I would normally commute on to my work day. It’s nice.

We’ve realized that this neighborhood is full of cool people. Everyone is friendly and actually talks to each other. It’s quite a change. I’ve found out one of the bloggers I read lives in this neighborhood as does the respected artistic director of a local theater.

This week we’ve mostly been Christmas shopping and making quick trips to Ikea to finish up our house. We had to pickup a dining table and chairs for our new dining room. We ended up choosing this table and these chairs:

The chairs are actually office chairs, but they look great. You can’t get as many under the table, but we’ve figured out a way to get 10 settings at it anyway. Of course we had to test out the chairs at Ikea which meant I had to carry a chair from the office area over to the dining room area, which of course is the furthest distance possible from one Ikea’s “short cuts”. I was waiting for a comment from the employees in Kitchen design, but they didn’t give me any guff.

Other than that we’ve been settling in. Last night we went to a neighborhood watch meeting and learned more about our neighbors. How to call in about suspicious characters in the neighborhood. Good stuff.

At lunch this afternoon I went running. There’s a hike and bike trail just across from where Santa Monica dead ends into Burleson. I jumped off and found myself on Pleasant Valley just a couple of minutes later. I ran all the way up to Riverside and Pleasant Valley before having to turn back (Julie asked me to be back by 1:30).

All in all we love it here. The neighborhood has some rough sides, but all in all it’s really cool.
I’m currently working in the backyard, watching Stella. Julie’s gone to get her haircut. It’s in the mid-seventies and this my view:

Stella looking for the march hare

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Comments

ashley

2007-12-21T01:01:33.000Z

i have your dining chair at my desk except that I have wheels on mine. Same body tho I think. Thats a cool combo with the table!

Tim (http://www.loadedguntheory.com/blog/director/list/tim.html)

2007-12-21T05:16:50.000Z

We actually got one for my desk too. It had wheels at first, but then we realized that it was marking up the floor so we switched that one to a stable base too.

kelli

2007-12-21T05:28:32.000Z

So you guys don’t have a car? Is most everything else accessible by bus there?

Tim (http://www.loadedguntheory.com/blog/director/listblog/tim.html)

2007-12-21T16:15:28.000Z

No we have one car, but it’s really Julie’s. She’s not on board with me leaving her at home without a car (and probably wouldn’t have let me sell the car if I’d planned on doing that). The bus does go pretty much everywhere I could possibly work except one part of town. It’s basically a rich suburb and they refuse to pay taxes to our equivalent of DART (Capital Metro) and so no buses run up and down their business corridor. Of course, that’s where my company moved. I’d planned on quitting if they moved there (and told them that explicitly when they were mentioning possible sites) because I’ve worked in that area of town for many years in the past and had no interest in commuting. It’s also the road where I got plowed into a guard rail. But they are going to let me work from home 2 days a week and find a way to get me into the office without me driving the other 3. It’s a good deal, but I’d still prefer to be working downtown. If I was working there I’d have a 20 minute bus ride through some of the prettiest neighborhoods in Austin. I know I’m very lucky to have these kind of choices, but it’s been very important to me to make sure that I can be home to cook dinner and put Stella to bed every night, and I’ve been really clear with everyone I’ve interviewed with in the past that that was my priority. So they’ve been pretty decent at accommodating me.

M1EK (http://mdahmus.monkeysystems.com/blog/)

2007-12-23T18:00:31.000Z

I’m in the same exact boat - my new office is on 360 halfway between Westbank and the mall. In the old days, I’d have ridden my bike without complaint - it’s a quite nice ride - but since I can’t do that anymore, and we did in fact sell a car (and I only took this job because it was working-from-home; I had even told them in the early stages that I was looking to go downtown or central), I can’t believe I’m even feeling guilty about the impending round of hardball. Of course it’s two bus rides plus a 1.5 mile walk. Of course, they haven’t been as nice to me as your work has either - I’m getting a lot of guilt now from a bunch of people newly hired who can’t seem to manage to work without face time - as if that’s MY problem. I’m expecting to be stuck going in, and stuck buying a second vehicle, quite soon, unless a couple of percolating job things pop much quicker and better than I expect. Sigh. I had a short conversation with a recruiter at one of the little offices along Bee Caves west of 360 (actually close to where I worked at office #1 at Realvue, 2 jobs ago) when I was trying to leave the N 183 corridor at that last job transition who, when I explained I only wanted to move central/downtown, told me that they did have free parking. Woo! It’s just amazing how clueless these people are. My current local-not-really-boss thinks she did me a favor by locating “on Ben White” (I guess she thinks that 360 is Ben White) rather than down in Buda, as if that makes a remote bit of difference.

Kate (http://katiekatworld.blogspot.com)

2007-12-24T02:46:32.000Z

I feel your pain. My long-term career goal is to work at the school 4 blocks away from home. I’m just not willing to give up that much of my time commuting. working from home sounds fabulous.